“There is one, and only one, kind of real internationalism, and that
is—working whole-heartedly for the development of the revolutionary
movement and the revolutionary struggle in one’s own country, and
supporting (by propaganda, sympathy, and material aid) this struggle,
this, and only this line, in every country without exception.”

Lenin, The Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution.

Mass Proletariat condemns the recent attack by the U.S. imperialists and
their allies in France and the U.K. on Syria. The attack represents a
dangerous escalation of the present inter-imperialist competition that
has engulfed the country and resulted in mass death and destruction for
the Syrian people. This indicates that the U.S. and its allies have an
interest in more aggressive military, economic, and political showdowns
in an effort to counter the growing influence of rival imperialists.
This escalation has been coupled with efforts by the U.S. state to
portray its involvement in the Syrian Civil War and the recent missile
strikes as a politically neutral endeavor that serves the interests of
all Americans.

The U.S., France, and the U.K. have justified these attacks on the
grounds that Bashar al-Assad’s government used chemical weapons to
attack people in the town of Douma on April 7. The motive for such an
attack has been publicly questioned by U.K. Major General Jonathan Shaw,
given Assad’s commanding military position in the region.1 The
missile strikes were launched before the Organisation for the
Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) was able to conduct on the ground
surveys to verify that the chemical attacks had occurred and, if so, who
was responsible.

This itself is a familiar pattern. In the buildup to the Iraq War in
2002, the Bush administration promoted conveniently tailored and edited
information about the nature of the Iraqi regime and their weapons
supplies to justify an invasion. The prospect that Iraq had weapons of
mass destruction—especially in the form of an alleged shipment of
uranium-rich yellowcake from Niger—was an important part of an effort
to gain support for the invasion. These claims have since been exposed
as outright fabrications by the U.S. state.2

This familiar pattern, which is now being used to justify further
military intervention in Syria, reveals the twisted logic of U.S.
imperialism. No state has used more chemical weapons in recent years
than the U.S. Most recently, white phosphorous and depleted uranium were
used in the U.S’s military activity in Iraq, with depleted uranium in
particular leading to a massive increase in cancer rates and an epidemic
of horrific birth defects. Napalm, agent orange, and other weapons
designed to terrorize civilian populations were deployed on a mass scale
in the 1960s and 1970s in the U.S.’s wars in Southeast Asia. The U.S.
also used biological weapons against the Korean people and Chinese
volunteers during the Korean War. Use of chemical weapons is not
restricted to the U.S. but extends to its closest allies as well. The
U.S.’s key ally in the region, Israel, used white phosphorous in its
attacks on the Gaza Strip in 2009.3

Despite the shaky foundations of the justification for military action
in Syria, the U.S. and its allies have invoked Assad’s purported use of
chemical weapons as a cover for escalating their intervention in the
Syrian Civil War. This war itself is a proxy war in which various
imperialist powers—in coordination with expansionist states and other
allies—are competing with each other to redivide the world and its
markets. The U.S. state has somewhat successfully portrayed its recent
strikes in Syria—and even its earlier efforts to repartition Syria
with the aid of Syrian Kurdish forces—as a just cause, especially in
domestic media within the U.S. This speaks to the low level of mass
political resistance in the country at present, a situation which
revolutionaries must transform.\
Syria has been the site of intensifying inter-imperialist conflict since
2011 Arab Spring. The country sits at a crucial crossroads between the
Middle East and Europe. Bashar al-Assad’s government has repeatedly
impeded and prevented the construction of oil and gas pipelines that
would supply Europe with fossil fuels from the Middle East. If
constructed, these pipelines would challenge Russian interests in the
gas markets in Europe, where Russian companies such as Gazprom control a
significant market share.4

What’s more, as a neocolony largely aligned with Russian, Iranian, and
Chinese state interests, Syria is a key country in the region through
which they can pursue their interests and project power. The
increasingly fierce competition between these three countries and the
U.S.-led imperialist bloc has manifested in Syria in the form of a
proxy-war. On the one side are the Syrian state forces, Hezbollah,
Iranian forces and militias, and Russian mercenaries. The Russian
military has also provided air support, arms, equipment, training, and
logistical coordination. On the other side are the U.S.-backed Kurdish
forces (YPG/J) and the related Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which
have been supplied, trained, and directed by U.S., French, and British
special forces.5 These two competing forces have largely
re-partitioned Syrian through the war against ISIS—which itself arose
due to a series of acts of covert support and blunders by the U.S.
state.

The rise of the YPG/J and SDF as U.S. proxies is a relatively recent
phenomenon, and is related to the U.S. state’s decision to pivot away
from supporting Islamist forces such as the erstwhile al-Nusra Front
(now Hayat Tahrir al-Sham).6 This itself is related to growing
contradictions between the U.S. state and their NATO ally, Turkey. U.S.
aligned proxy forces currently control a significant portion of Syrian
territory (~25%).7 However, sharpening contradictions with Turkey
have threatened the U.S.’s long-term plans in the country and the
region. Turkey recently decided to launch Operation Euphrates Shield, an
attack on the YPG’s position in Afrin province in Northern Syria.8
Turkey has threatened to extend this operation to U.S. positions in
Manbij, and has also made a series of overtures to Russian imperialism,
including a decision to purchase a number of Russian S-400 anti-aircraft
units. Turkey’s conflicts with European Union members such as Germany,
Greece, and the Netherlands have also increased in recent years. U.S.
worries about the stability of its relations with Turkey have been
exacerbated by the political trajectory of the present ruling party in
Turkey, the Justice and Development Party (AKP). Misgivings about the
AKP were reflected in the U.S. State Department’s initial
characterization of the 2016 Gülenist coup attempt against the AKP as an
“uprising,” a characterization which was subsequently retracted after
the coup failed. Even after the coup, the U.S. refused to extradite
Gülen, despite repeated requests by the AKP government, underscoring the
U.S. state’s conflicts with the current regime.

These contradictions, in conjunction with the Syrian military’s ongoing
victories against various rebel forces—many of which are aligned with
particular interests of the U.S. state—has led to concerns within the
U.S. state about the viability of their existing proxy forces in the
region. There is worry that these forces cannot secure U.S. interests
and cannot combat the combined forces of the Syrian government,
Hezbollah, Iran, and Russian mercenaries. Such concerns have been
magnified in the face of increased military aggression from Turkey, and
the AKP’s related overtures to Russia. The U.S., France, and the U.K.
have invested significant amounts of capital in long-term projects in
the SDF-controlled sections of Syria, and hope to expand their control
of territory, resources, and markets in the coming years. However, they
fear that this will not be possible if the Assad government remains in
power, and especially if it is able to forcibly remove the SDF from the
land which it has captured.

Russia has long standing ties with Assad, and has provided his
government with arms, training, air support, and other supplies. Russia
also has strategic interests in ensuring his continued rule in Syria to
prevent the development of various oil and gas pipelines that would cut
into Russian market share in European markets. Iran has poured billions
of dollars into the Syrian Civil War, mobilized and trained militias
throughout the country, directly involved its own military, built
military installations throughout the country to challenge Israel, and
constructed an over-land shipping corridor to the Mediterranean through
Syria. China has avoided direct military involvement in the war, but has
negotiated billions of dollars in loans and investment to profit from
the reconstruction of Syria after the civil war. Syria is also a crucial
crossroads in China’s Belt and Road Initiative, and the planned projects
there would help to secure Chinese capital interests in the region.

If Assad remains in power, this would further strengthen the position of
China, Russia, and Iran in the region, and weaken the ability of the
U.S. and its allies to project power and control markets. It would also
have various downstream effects. Economically it would strengthen the
Russian market share in the European gas markets. Politically it could
encourage Turkey to pivot further into the camp of Russian and Chinese
imperialism. Military it would result in the growth of bases and missile
facilities in the region that would challenge Israel’s position and
regional strength.

All of this has contributed to a situation in which the U.S.-led
imperialist bloc is increasingly concerned over the trajectory of
developments in Syria and thus has decided to escalate its direct
military involvement in the region. This is evident in the recent joint
missile strikes by the U.S., French, and British militaries, as well as
the increasing—in number and intensity—Israeli attacks on various
military installations throughout Syria.

The U.S.-led attack itself did not appear to do significant damage to
Assad’s government or military. However, it does set a precedent for
further escalation, and for more direct intervention in Syria. In the
wake of the strike, the U.S., France, and the U.K. have put forward
United Nations (UN) security council draft resolution which would
authorize a joint UN-OPCW investigation into the chemical weapons
attacks in Syria.9 Russia and China, both members on the security
council, are unlikely to allow such an investigation to proceed. This
itself is part of the larger public relations war by these competing
imperialist blocs to frame the other as the real culprits and aggressors
in this instance, and in the war overall.

A Maoist perspective shows there is no such thing as a “less-evil”
imperialist power. They are all competing to redivide the world in the
in the interests of the monopoly-capitalist class of their country and
bloc. These interests are in contradiction to the masses of the world,
who the imperialists oppress and exploit to grow their wealth and power.
This is particularly evident in the Syrian civil war, where at least
half of the pre-war population of 22 million have become refugees. This
does not include those who have been slaughtered in war, labeled
“collateral damage” by the imperialist aggressors. The situation is
likely to worsen, as contradictions between rival imperialist powers are
sharpening, and open warfare between them, or a larger regional war,
could break out in the near future.

Given these circumstances, it is incumbent upon us in the U.S. to work
to build a strong anti-war movement. This sort of work requires a broad
united front approach which brings together the masses of various
class-backgrounds under proletarian leadership aimed at opposition to
the U.S.’s imperialist policies, and in solidarity with the masses of
oppressed nations. The anti-war movement in this country is almost
non-existent, and what little that does exist is under the leadership of
various petty-bourgeois reformers and revisionist groups. These forces
are not opposed to capitalist-imperialism but rather seek to funnel the
masses’ resistance into liberal reforms and support for rival
imperialist powers respectively.

Under such leadership the anti-war movement will not be able mount
vibrant and effective mass resistance to U.S. imperialism. This country
does not have a strong living legacy of anti-war activism. Even the key
lessons from the opposition to the Vietnam War have not been preserved
on a mass level. The movement against the Vietnam War was not built
overnight, but rather required principled work by revolutionaries.
Through this work, revolutionaries were able to link the protests
against the war to the struggles at home such as the movement for Black
Liberation, for example in the “Free Huey” campaign, and to struggles
abroad through communication with and awareness of the Vietnamese
resistance. U.S. imperialist policies and wars abroad have a close
connection to oppression and exploitation at home.

Building an anti-war movement in this country does not mean attending a
revisionist “Hands Off Syria” rally once every few months, nor does it
mean posting a few memes on Facebook. Solidarity with the oppressed
peoples around the world cannot be reduced to a formalistic march and a
“revolutionary” posture online or within liberal groups. It requires
patient, diligent, and methodical work among the broad masses of this
country to form the organizational basis for resistance. As
contradictions and competition between imperialist powers intensify we
are rapidly approaching a major regional war in the Middle East, and
potentially another world war. The imperialists of this country and the
world will gladly slaughter tens and even hundreds of millions of people
to preserve their own interests and weaken their rivals. We must seize
the time and build up the anti-war movement in this country.

For more on this see the details in our document Russia is an
Imperialist Country. ↩

The U.S. has even adopted the practice of embedding military
personnel within the SDF to deter rivals from directly attacking
this U.S. proxy. Russian adopted a similar tactic with in YPG in the
Afrin region of Syria, until it recently agreed to withdraw military
personnel and allow Turkey to proceed with it’s military assault on
Afrin, called Operation Euphrates Shield. ↩

This figure is somewhat deceptive, as the territory that the
U.S.-aligned SDF controls includes some of the best arable land
in the country, the Tabqa Dam which produces ~50% of the country’s
electricity, and the oil fields and pipelines surrounding Deir
ez-Zor. ↩

Some have pointed to Operation Euphrates Shield, and the U.S.’s
willingness to allow Turkey to proceed with this offensive as
evidence that the alliance between the NATO allies trumps the U.S.’s
alliance with the YPG. This view represents a narrow and empiricist
understanding of the situation. The YPG troops in Afrin did not work
with the U.S., but rather were working with the Russian military.
Prior to the attack Turkey reached an agreement with the Russian
military that it would pull out its troops embedded in the YPG
forces stationed in Afrin, and thereby allow the attack to proceed
without risk of harm to Russian soldiers and the possible diplomatic
crisis that could follow. ↩